


The Price of Happiness

by baekkieony



Series: Drowning Alive [18]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: All Magic Comes With a Price, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Depressing, Depression, Heavy Angst, Judgment, M/M, Not Happy, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sadstuck, Sleep Deprivation, Social Anxiety, Triggers, rated mature for heavy depressions, valium made me feel like i was flying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-16 11:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14163843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baekkieony/pseuds/baekkieony
Summary: They told him the pills would help, but what is the price of happiness?





	The Price of Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [3star4life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3star4life/gifts).



> This is very depressing and kind of based on personal experience, so please treat it with the sensitivity it deserves.

Sehun looks at the pill.

Citalopram.

They told him it would help with his depressions. Told him that it would make him happy again.

He takes it.

He asked them, back then when they prescribed it, what the price of happiness is.

One more pill, they told him.

____________________

Clonazepam and Ativan against his panic attacks and social anxiety.

Sometimes just Xanax.

They told him it would calm him. Make him able to be a functional member of society.

He hates the thought of going outside. Meeting people. He's happy to have the few friends he has.

Even if they scare him partly.

But sometimes, he's too scared to admit.

He asked the doctors what it costs to speak to his mother without shaky hands and wobbly knees.

One more pill, they told him.

____________________

Valium's normally something more likely to begin with. It's not like Sehun ever wanted it neither craved nor desired the need to take medication to be able to _live_ without mentally dying. But after taking Valium for a while – it started with 10 milligrams back when he was trying to fix feelings he still does not understand completely – he became quite an addict of it. Sehun used the word "quite" to describe it as something bearable and unimportant, like he might as well could swallow fizzy candy instead of drugs and it still would be the same case – which it is by no means.

Sehun told his friends all the time that depression and anxiety cannot just be fixed with one or two pills every day and he told them again that happiness can't be the normal mood for everyone in the world at every second they live. He tried to make them understand why million people live with depression – probably someone you know – and it still can't be cured.

 _A sign_ , he thinks, _it should be a sign that some things cannot be ascertainabled or apprehended by normal humans being._ That there are things not understandable for a normal mind or everyday genius.

But when he wasn't in the school for days again, they still asked him where he was when he came back and he still couldn't tell them the truth, because he was scared that they would understand him as less as they understood those other millions of people suffering from depressions and anxiety.

_____________________

As long as Sehun can remember, they tried to fix him. Fix his feelings, fix his depressions, first with Ativan then with Mirtazapine. Tried to get him under control with Xanax and Valium. As long as he can remember he was never enough in the way he just was. At first, he wasn't even ready to take medication, he had to come along with the fact that he just wasn't happy anymore all the time. He remembers himself as a happy child, with lots of friends and a well structured family background. He still has a well structured family background and the only reason most of his friends left was because they weren't able to deal with Sehun's very bad days. I mean, how can 15 year old's understand why somebody at their age living the live is not happy?

Depressions leave a lot of people in the dark, with their own feelings but also to deal with them alone. Sehun was misdiagnosed two times, one time with a bipolar disorder which they tried to fix with 50 milligram Lamictal – what definitely didn't help, because Sehun doesn't even have a bipolar disorder. The other time, it was ADHD, which also was "fixed" with the usual Ritalin, bringing up the following headache and only making his anxiety worse, because they had only diagnosed him with ADHD first and not with anxiety attacks and Concerta, which was way better but made him skinny in no time.

Then he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, social anxiety and there was hope. Hope itself is the worst drug, because when there's a diagnose there has to be a cure, right? Sehun saw the way out, the light at the end of the tunnel, but when he reached it by increasing the dosage of his medication week by week, it was shattered and broken and he was addicted.

When they set him off Valium, it was like coming down from a real long high flight and crashing onto the ground in full speed without a mattress to smooth the fall. He had the worst anxiety attacks in his life, his blood pressure was unbelievably high and so was his stress level. The first days were hell itself, because even if the doctors slowly reduce the medication, it is hard as fuck to live through the pain when you have to detox your body and can't control yourself and your feelings you suppressed so long.

He was lost in the jungle of medication, where he once claimed to be safe, but now was getting more lost and far from home with every second passing. The Valium withdrawal was so hard, so fucking hard and it became more impossible with every second he had to live through it and one day, Sehun wasn't able to bear it anymore. He was not after Xanax anymore, but Mirtazapine didn't fix it and Citalopram didn't either and his nerves were thrilled enough by just existing and when his best friend asked him one day what it would take Sehun to be happy again, because he seemed so sad lately, he answered with "death" and started crying in the middle of the school hall.

_____________________

When his friend brought him home this day, his parents decided they weren't able to bear with Sehun anymore and Sehun could understand that, because who would? They signed him up for the clinic that evening; they had enough diagnoses to take him there after three days.

The weeks in the clinic were the worst in his life. His constant thrill to die, his will to live was dead and the worst: he had to tell his friends. It made the journey to his healing and happier life a lot heavier than he ever would admit.

But in the end, it turned out good. Not even one ever judged him for being the way he is, or being the way he was back then and even if they could never understand why Sehun sometimes is still not able to be happy, they never questioned it or made fun of him but were there for him when he needed them the most. Sehun does not judge them for cluelessness about a disorder they never had and which Sehun does not understand himself.

It took a lot of time, working on himself, but one person can take the real credit for helping him out of all. Kim Jongin.

He was one of the nurses he had to come to to get checked in the clinic and when he locked eyes with him and Jongin smiled at him nicely, Sehun felt the corners of his mouth going up a little too.

They met in the clinic and when Sehun was able to leave it, at the final age of 24 with two misdiagnosis, a ton of pills and four suicide attempts behind him, Jongin left with him.

_____________________

Now, at the age of 27, he is happier than he ever was, is detoxed from most of the drugs he's taken over more than 11 years of his life with Jongin by his side, he is able to stand up in the morning and make himself a tea without spilling the whole thing onto the ground because he's so scared of the day laying in front of him.

It's a normal day, when Jongin comes back from work and Sehun sits there on the sofa, waiting for him in all his glory, and Jongin smiles, warm and lovely, because he can be happy that Sehun is still alive and Sehun smiles back, because he realized that he doesn't need pills to be happy, but people who care for him.

And for the first time in his life, it feels like _love_.

When he throws himself in Jongin's arms and the nearly empty bottle with Ativan – one pill left, hopefully the last forever – spills on the ground, he grabs it and studies the small white magical pill that is able to make you feel like you're flying in his hand, considers taking it for a second, because he feels a little bit of panic in his shaking hands, but then Jongin turns him around, throws the pill into the container and kisses him instead.

You can't just pop a pill when you're depressed and expect to feel happy again. There is so much more needed for curing depressions than sorting out the chemicals in your brain. You need love and friends, professional help and treatment and also a lot of time. The journey you'll have to take is long and it's hard, but when you make it the feeling of luck and happiness is enough treatment to make up for all these lost bad days and really bad days.

Sehun still isn't able to tell what the price of happiness is and he probably never will. But most likely the only reason for this one missing answer is because happiness has no price, even if the doctors might tell you different. They tell you that all magic comes with a price, but for no reason should your health be the payment.


End file.
